Dream Home Winners: Gabriella Vallillee and Chris Boyd

 “This is a game changer for us, with no exaggeration this is life changing,” shared 37-year-old Gabriella Vallillee when we asked her what winning the dream home meant for her.

Fresh off her dream home win, we had the opportunity to connect with Gabriella and relive the day she won the Nanaimo Hospice Dream Home at The Foothills.

“I drive a lot for work and kept hearing the ads about the dream home on the radio, she recounts.” As a Behaviour Analyst for the group Salish Sea Behaviour Consulting Gabriella travels to and from varying homes on Vancouver to island to support children with developmental disabilities. “I said to my boyfriend, Chris that the odds were really good at 1 in 25,000 and that I think we should buy a 5-pack of tickets, so we did. It also supported an amazing charity so to me it was a win-win, but not going to lie, I really wanted to win that house!”

Chris works full time as a landscaper and the couple was residing in a rental in Lantzville. A blended family they have two kids aged 5 and 6. Like so many young families, were eager for home security and ownership, but with the hot Nanaimo market this was proving challenging. “We have been looking at the market pretty regularly. We had good jobs, saved, but we had started to lose hope.”

The night before the winning ticket was revealed Gabriella remembers chatting with Chris and saying, “I think tomorrow is the dream home win….I can’t wait to move in there!” The couple had often joked when they would drive by The Foothills or hear the ad that that was their future home.

“They next day, I was driving home from work and was talking to Chris on my car phone as he was also driving to Canadian Tire,” Gariella remembers. “Another call was coming in but didn’t recognize the number so just thought it was spam. I saw they left a voice mail so I figured not spam, so I told Chris I’d call him back.” Gabriella hung up her car phone and pulled over to check the message. “I start listening to the message and all I can remember is the voice saying It is Paige from the Dream Home.”

She didn’t even finish the voicemail. Gabriella called the number back, not knowing Paige was in person with a live radio crew, the Hospice staff and a few dozen more people waiting to congratulate the winner.

If you were listening to The Wave that day you may remember hearing this first hand, but the conversation went like this:

Paige: “Hi Gabriella”

Gabriella: “Hiiiiii??!!!”

 Paige: “Congratulations you are the WINNER of the Dream Home Lottery!”

 Gabriella: <inaudible screaming>

 Paige: “Would you like to have a glass of champagne? I’m going to text you an address so you can come celebrate your win!”

Composing herself, still in disbelief, Gabriella called Chris back and told him we they won the dream home. “I told him to get out of Canadian Tire, and that it was no joke and that we WON!” Chris’s reaction, like many of ours in the digital age, was more on the suspicious side and still was convinced the voicemail and call was spam.

Driving to the Hospice address, Gabriella remembers parking and walking towards the address feeling incredibly nervous. “As Chris and I were in different vehicles, I got there first and walking up I hear shhhh shhh I think she’s here. I open the door and there is a room full of people who yell CONGRATULATIONS and are holding out champagne and balloons.

Chris came about five minutes later still donning his landscaping work clothes and was in a state of shock. Gabriella remembers him continually looking at her and saying, “I don’t know, is this a scam??”

The next morning, the couple woke up with things feeling surreal. Gabriella recalls, “We had coffee and then decided we needed to go and try and find it”. They got up got in the car and drove to the site. “It started to feel more real then, and Chris finally believed this was actually going to be our home”

Gabriella shared with us that she has lost her mom to cancer, and part of her choice to buy the tickets was to support a charity she knew was so important to others battling illnesses. The first person Gabriella called after learning about the home win was to her sister. Once the initial shock and excitement wore off her sister said, you know this was mom’s doing. With tears and so much emotion, Gabriella answered, I know.

The lucky family is set to move in to their forever Dream Home winter 2022.

The Nanaimo Community Hospice Dream Home Lottery project will support the Hospice in their future programs and services, and The Foothills team hopes to support the event with future dream home builds.